


(Not) Your Regular Friday Night

by MintSauce



Series: The Halfway House [34]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 21:06:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3784297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintSauce/pseuds/MintSauce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Honestly, this is the last thing Ian thought he'd come home from work to find. You couldn't make it up if you tried. </p><p>Mickey: well Mickey just really needs to piss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Not) Your Regular Friday Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashxtonsdimplxs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashxtonsdimplxs/gifts).



> This is both the weirdest and the best thing I have ever been requested to write! I love it!

Ian was thinking he would go home, curl up with Mickey on the couch and watch a shitty movie. The regular Friday night stuff. He doesn’t think he can be fooled for thinking that.

He’s been tired more recently, dodging Fiona’s calls. It seems the wedding has given her a fresh surge of confidence to get through to him. He’s almost inclined to let her, almost inclined to pick up the phone and tell her they can meet somewhere. On neutral ground.

He doesn’t though. He will at some point. He’s just not ready to be disappointed again yet.

And he knows she’ll mess up at some point. He knows she’ll give in to the temptation and make another comment or send another pointed look at him and Mickey.

He wants to trust her, wants to forgive the person who sang him to sleep and stroked his hair when he was ill. He wants to let it all go, to bring it back to how it should be, how they could be if she wasn’t so wrapped up in the past still.

It’s like he said to Lip at the wedding. And maybe he shouldn’t have blown up like that at the groom, but Ian blames one too many drinks and a red-eyed Fiona cornering him when all he wanted was to speak to someone else, anyone else.

Fiona doesn’t seem to realise that maybe he wasn’t just there for her. He hasn’t spoken to Debbie properly in years either. Although, that’s less grudge-based and more due to plain old neglect.

Still, it’s like he said to Lip. They never stopped to consider where he would be if Mickey wasn’t in the picture. They’ve always just assumed their own endings to the story that is his life.

He thinks the constant phone calls are probably Lip having passed on that message. He isn’t ready to find out yet though.

He doesn’t want to hear her apologies. He just wants to skip that part, knows they can’t.

He’ll listen to them eventually. Not today though. Not today.

So when he gets home, the sight that greets him is one that makes him wonder if he’s finally snapped. He has to be hallucinating, _has_ to be, because there’s no way…

Mickey’s sitting on the couch, one arm pinned to his side, the other stretched out over the back of the seat. He looks awkward, red in the face and maybe like he’s considering pissing himself. Then again, any sane person would if they had a giant ass snake draped across their lap.

It’s like one of those ones out of those bad thriller movies. A boa constrictor or anaconda or whatever the motherfucking _huge_ snakes were.

The tip of its tail is coiled around Mickey’s ankle and from there it’s about six foot of scaly body winding its way up into Mickey’s lap, around his chest and over the back of his shoulder. It doesn’t look like it’s moving though which is probably a good sign. If anything, it seems to be asleep.

Do snakes sleep? Ian had never considered that before, but then, he’d never come home to find a giant snake wrapped around his boyfriend on their couch before.

He supposed there was a first time for everything.

“Mick…”

Mickey’s had wide eyes trained on Ian from the second he opened their apartment door.

“Would you believe me if I said I have no fucking clue how I got here?” Mickey asks.

Normally, Ian would say no, but… he can’t really think of any other explanation as to _why_ Mickey would be in this situation.

“Who’s the fuck is it?” he asks.

Mickey splutters, freezing quickly when the snake shifts. “You think I know?” he hisses. “I sat down and felt this think moving over my fucking ankle. Spotted the snake and decided, nah I’m not gonna move because I don’t want _to get eaten like a fucking gazelle._ ”

It would be funny if it was happening to anyone else.

“Uh… should I call animal control or something?” Ian asks, a bit at loss as to what exactly the protocol is here.

Maybe he should Google it: _what do I do when I come home to find a giant snake wrapped around my boyfriend?_

(It turns out what you do get is a load of information about what snakes symbolise in dreams. It makes Ian glad he didn’t Google it right then, because it was about as much use as a chocolate fucking fireguard.)

“Just do _something_ , Ian, for fuck’s sake,” Mickey says. “You have no idea how bad I need to take a piss!”

Ian chuckles. “How long have you been sitting there?” he asks, just out of curiousity.

“ _Way too fucking long, Gallagher._ Now will you shut the fuck up and get this thing off of me!”

 _“Oh my god_.”

Ian realises then that he’s left the front door open, something he doesn’t think he can really be blamed for.

He turns to see Ella…Elsa (?) coming out of her apartment. Her mouth is hanging open at the sight of Mickey there on the couch, although, it’s probably less to do with Mickey this time and more to do with the snake.

“You guys have a fucking python!”

Anaconda, boa constrictor… python… Ian really needs to Google snakes or something because he honestly has no idea what this thing is.

“Um… not exactly,” Ian says.

It’s a little awkward, because brief sightings in the hallway aside, this is the first time he’s been face to face with their neighbour since he shut the door on her.

“Well then why is it wrapped around Mickey?” she asks.

Ian laughs, “That’s actually the question of the hour, believe it or not.”

“Will you stop fucking laughing about it!” Mickey whisper-yells from his position on the couch. “This is not fucking funny, Gallagher and I swear to God when this thing gets off me…”

“You’re going to what, Mick?” Ian asks, smirking. “Piss yourself.”

“ _After_ I take a fucking piss, you douchebag,” Mickey says, turning even more red in the face as Ian watches. “I’m going to shove my foot so far up your ass, you’re going to be tasting cheese, you useless fucking asshat!”

Ian laughs, almost doubling over with the force of it. He can’t help it, his boyfriend looks so helpless and so angry pinned beneath that snake. And sure, the reality probably is he will get punched for that, but then all Mickey is going to do is sulk.

Sometimes Ian quite likes a sulky Mickey. He likes coaxing him out of it more.

“Kinky,” he says, winking at him.

With the hand that’s free, Mickey just gives him the finger.

“How is this situation even real?” Elsa asks and Ian had sort of forgotten she was there. _Oops._

Ian shrugs, “He does get himself into the strangest positions.”

Maybe not usually this strange, but still. Nothing is ever quite this strange.

“Don’t you dare,” Mickey says when Ian pulls his phone out of his pocket.

Ian shrugs. “Sorry, Mick,” he says. “You know you’d be doing it if it was the other way around.” He snaps the picture and immediately sends it to both Carl and Mandy and then to Mickey’s old work partner, Louis just for good measure.

“Gallagher!”

He throws his hands up. “Mick, I really don’t know what you want me to do.” He could call animal control and he will when it stops being quite so hilarious. Or maybe the snake will just move of its own violation.

He kind of hopes it doesn’t just because he doesn’t know then where it’s going to go or how they’re going to get it out of the apartment. At least when it’s where it is now, he knows where it is.

“You’re just going to leave me like this!” Mickey says and it’s not really a question, because he knows Ian will leave him there to stew for a little bit longer, yes. “You are such a fucking dick.”

Behind Ian, Elsa laughs lightly. “I’m going to work, but I hope you get this whole… _situation_ sorted guys,” she says. “I’ll ask anyone I see going down if they’ve lost a snake.” She pulls a face at Ian, “Good luck.”

With one last look and chuckle in Mickey’s direction, she heads off.

Leaving Ian standing there with his angry thug of a boyfriend trapped under a giant snake.

“You want any coffee?” he asks, leaving the door open in case the owner or just _someone_ who could lend any assistance on the matter walks past.

Mickey just looks thunderous.

“Shit,” Ian says. “Forgot about the piss situation, sorry. You want a sandwich?”

“NO I DON’T WANT A FUCKING SANDWICH, GALLAGHER!” Mickey spits at him. “I want this fucking snake, OFF ME!”

“Not even with that good ham you like?” Ian asks, trying desperately not to break down laughing again.

Just as Mickey’s about to go on another tirade of swearing at him, a head pokes around their open door. “ _Oh, Mr. Periwinkle!”_

The old woman that Ian has sometimes seen down at the mailboxes now and then is standing there in her knitted little sweater, hands on her hips and expression like she’s scolding a naughty grandchild. Except, she’s looking at the snake.

“Oh boys,” she says. “I’m so sorry, he’s being very naughty recently. He escaped out the door while I was talking to that nice young delivery man about suede.”

Ian blinks. “He’s uhh, he’s yours?” he asks, motioning to the snake and where Mickey is still trapped underneath it.

“Of course” the woman says. “That’s Mr. Periwinkle.”

 _“_ What the fuck,” Mickey mouths at him, which Ian is pretty sure the woman sees, but she doesn’t pass comment.

“That’s, um… nice.”

She nods and walks over to Mickey, patting his cheek kindly. “I’m so sorry about this love, I hope he hasn’t been too much of an inconvenience to you.”

“Um…” Mickey looks as floored as Ian feels. “I just really need the toilet, honestly.”

She chuckles. “Of course, love, I’m sorry. He never does have the best timing.”

She taps the snake’s head with a finger and Ian just watches, jaw on the floor as she starts to coax the snake over onto her. “He’s going through a bit of a rebellious phase,” she says. “But really, he’s quite sweet.”

Ian doesn’t doubt it.

“I’m sure, Mrs…” he realises then that he doesn’t actually know her name. They don’t really know any of their neighbours by name other than the chick across the hall.

“Bowe,” she says, smiling at him like she doesn’t have a giant snake wrapped over her shoulders now. Which, fair play, Ian thinks, because the thing looks fucking heavy. “But you boys can call me Edna.”

Ian nods to her politely, watching as his boyfriend bolts for the bathroom the minute he’s free. Ian laughs and Edna titters in that way old women do sometimes.

“I’ll just take him home,” she says, coming closer to pat Ian’s cheek like she did Mickey’s. “It was lovely to meet you boys.”

“You too,” Ian says weakly and watches as she shuts the door behind her.

He’s still standing there staring at the closed door when Mickey emerges back out of the bathroom. He looks relieved, probably in more ways than one. That scowl is still firmly in place on his face though.

“I fucking hate you,” he says, glaring.

Ian laughs. “Aww babe, don’t get like that!”

Mickey very bluntly gives him the finger as he stalks off into their bedroom. _Yep_ , Ian has lots of making up to do, he knows. But then, it’s a good thing that it’s a Friday and he has the whole weekend to do so.

The next day he gets a bit of a head start when Edna comes by to drop off a still-warm apple pie. After Mickey’s had two brick sized pieces, he lets Ian wrap himself around him on their bed. At least until he says, “So who’s a better hugger, Mick? Me? Or Mr. Periwinkle?”

**Author's Note:**

> [themintsauce](http://themintsauce.tumblr.com)  
>  @BethCottrell


End file.
